CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago Public Schools officials said Thursday they plan to close 54 schools in an effort to address a $1 billion budget shortfall and improve a struggling educational system - a plan that drew the ire of parents and teachers.

District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say the closures are necessary because too many CPS buildings are half-empty. The nation's third-largest district, CPS has about 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000, officials say. But opponents say the closures will disproportionately affect minority children and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school.

The plan will affect about 30,000 students, CPS officials said. They say money being spent to keep underutilized schools open could be better used to educate students elsewhere.

"Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high quality education that prepares them to succeed in life, but for too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilized, under-resourced schools," Byrd-Bennett said. "As a former teacher and a principal, I've lived through school closings and I know that this will not be easy, but I also know that in the end this will benefit our children."

Blacks didn’t give a rats a** about whites put on buses and bused to the other end of town, why should we give a rats a** about them being bused to another part of gang territory. Wait till amnesty and hispanics move into the city and kick their butts. Popcorn season is about to begin.

This is so wonderful. You can’t teach Shakespeare to these gang bangers. The key to responding to gun deaths is to declare gangs “terrorists” and then Drone their asses.zap!! I love it. we will do that when we get in power.

Wait till amnesty and hispanics move into the city and kick their butts. Popcorn season is about to begin.
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It’s sad, but when you continuously vote stupidly, act stupidly, don’t give a hoot about your dignity, your education, your morals, your own people and the continual pitiful condition you and they are in year and year, decade after decade ..if you TRULY are not intelligent enough to give a hoot or figure out what to do DIFFERENTLY to solve the problem then, I dunno ...maybe it’s just survival of the fittest kind of thing. I hate to say that, but it just seems to be true with this particular group.

I wish it wasn’t so. So many have been trying to tell them HOW and WHAT to do differently for a long time ..but they stubbornly refuse to take that advice. What may happen in the coming years to them is REALLY going to be sad and awful to watch. I mean ..it’s already been awful to see and to watch for YEARS ...yet it continues.

What’s sad are the crack babies ..the poor sick kids ...the kids born into it, innocent, yet in time, they too fall to the same fate. I think it weighs on everyone in our country ...we laugh, we joke about it . .. but in the end, it’s just horrific to see, to witness ...and equally as horrific to be TAXED into supporting it.

Rahm Emanuel say the closures are necessary because too many CPS buildings are half-empty. The nation's third-largest district, CPS has about 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000, officials say

403,000/500,000*100 = 80.6%. That's quite a leap to round to one half. A whole is closer.

District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say... too many CPS buildings are half-empty... 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000... opponents say the closures will disproportionately affect minority children and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school. The plan will affect about 30,000 students...

Must be that 97,000 gap is due to the total lack of gun control in Chicago. /s

Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high quality education

No. First of all, where is that written? Second, not every child is educable or can function inside a school. But most importantly education costs money. Money has to come from people that work. Work is an expenditure of a persons time and energy. Its literally a person's life. Nobody has any rightful claim on anyone else's life or what they produce. Forcing someone to work for the benefit of others with compensation is slavery. Its the worst form of tyranny.

Saying it's "for the children" is a lame excuse and it doesn't even apply in this case since the last thing that goes on inside a Chicago Public School is anything that resembles the molding of future productive, contributing members of society.

Use of the word “school” in the context of the CPS is fraud upon the students and the students single parent.

My kid attended the Marine Military Academy in grades 10-12. Walking down the hall you could hear a pin drop. Peek in a class and all kids were sitting straight up and listening to a teacher that was not an NEA card carrier and in about one third of the cases he/she had a PHD and enjoyed working at his/her job.

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